Survival Basics

Well. Where does one start with a first blog post. Since SAFTEnet is all about low budget survival, it's quite apt that I provide a look at how we eat on a day to day basis. 

We're poorer than church mice, as they say. At least church mice, being part of an organised religion, get ridiculously generous tax breaks. 

Poverty aside, we keep destitution at bay. We eat good nutritious meals on a weekly budget of around $150 for three people. That includes the purchase of good quality coffee beans. Not everyone drinks coffee, so budgets can go lower.

The key to survival is nutrition. We've discovered that the key to good nutrition is a diet that

one not only enjoys eating, but also preparing. Ambivalence towards the process of preparing food can easily lead to a tendency to rely on convenience foods of poor nutritional value. We might be poor, but through the acquisition of knowledge and the development of skills, our menu provides a diet of both nutrition and delicion (that was a choice between nutritionalness and deliciousness).The better the food, the more likely it is to be nutritious. Very often the most nutritious meals are those most dependent not on process but produce and therefore they are often the easiest dishes to prepare.

I'm often absolutely bored silly by the prospect of preparing a complicated meal. Yet when I'm presented with good fresh produce, I'm usually very easily motivated. I'm especially motivated by something that I don't find very often or something of particularly good quality. For me, the pleasure is in creating a dish that makes that particular component stand out. That often calls for only the most simple process. Living in a caravan with a small kitchen, simple processes are very desirable.

At the end of the day, even as someone with as much time on their hands as me, can't be arsed rattling their brain to come up with something interesting for every meal. We're lucky in that we enjoy an eclectic choice of freshly caught seafood. Unfortunately however, the fishing gods sometimes  fail to smile upon us. That's why it's quite important that we have a decent,  arsenal of good low cost standards up our sleeves. By standards I mean delicious healthy dishes, for which we generally keep the ingredients for, on hand. Dishes made with low cost dry goods, frozen produce or produce that can handle being stored for a while.

Some of our favourite standard dishes, which I'll be later posting recipes based on, include the following: 

Fresh fish and chips or salad with mayonnaise - Anyone can knock up a salad. Fish fillet

Michelle's Chips (R)

pieces, dredged through Thai rice flour mixed with salt and pepper, take us around 20 minutes from taking out the fish and putting it on the plate. Mayonnaise takes five minutes, a stick blender a couple of eggs, some lemon juice, a little olive oil, even more peanut oil and some salt. If you want aoli stick in a few garlic cloves. We never deep fry chips. Michelle has perfected a far more healthy and much easier way of making perfect chips, by steaming potatoes until quite soft, then cutting them into chips, tossing them in a little oil and roasting them in the oven for half an hour. They're bloody lovely!

Rice dishes - Whilst we limit our overall rice intake, one rice based dish per week is a great

way to save time and money. The meal's nutritional value obviously depends on what you add to the rice. Jamaican style "rice and peas (beans)" for instance, is a good source of protein. Neither rice nor legumes alone are a source of protein, but in combination, magic food science stuff happens. Risottos, particularly with mushrooms are a favourite as is Nasi Lemak with Ikan billis and peanut, which is Malaysian style coconut rice with fried dried anchovies. Ikan bilis is available in the Asian food aisles of mainstream supermarkets for about $4 for a pack that will make a meal for three. The options for rice dishes are endless and might also take the form of biryanis, portuguese safron rice or Japanese don dishes.

Classic Thai curries - Thai curries are all about the pastes. Thai curry pastes are widely available, but it's genuinely very easy to make your own. They freeze very well. Once you have your pastes on hand, Thai standards such as gaeng daeng and gaeng keow warn are a case of combining a few things in a wok. Paste, coconut milk, fresh or frozen Thai basil or kaffir lime leaves (depending on the dish), fish sauce, stock, green beans, thinly sliced meats, fish, prawns or whatever takes your fancy or more importantly whatever's the best bargain on the day. We're talking about 20 minutes work and a cost of literally a few dollars, depending on which proteins you choose to add. 

Spanish Tortilla - Eggs are a sensational source of nutrition. Even if like me, you buy those

expensive ones from chickens that get around flaunting their freedom, they're still pretty cheap. Sliced fried potato, Spanish onion, capsicum, garlic, smoked paprika make a great combination for a tortilla. Depending on your budget and food regime, a good tortilla can be turned into something very special with the addition of your favourite small goods or charcuterie. 

Pasta dishes - Pasta is high in carbohydrate, so we limit our intake. All said and done, it's not going to kill anyone once a week. Pasta dishes are probably the cheapest and quickest dishes to prepare, so they're pretty hard to leave out of a list of standards. For those who have theories about pastas made from a variety of flours that cater for all sorts of dietary requirements and eating disorders such as gluten intolerance, the choice is yours. Obviously the really expensive pastas that'll see you shelling out in excess of eight bucks a pack, are usually bloody good, but they're also bloody expensive. I know Jamie Oliver and his mates bang on endlessly about pasta dishes being all about the pasta itself, not the sauce. You know I'm not sure. When it's between a $2 or $8 a pack, I'm quite happy for the sauce to steel the pasta's thunder. 

I'm not particularly keen on the supermarket 60 cents a pack varieties, but you can easily find good Australian or Italian pastas for around $2 a pack. When it comes down to stretching things on a pension, sometimes the 60c packs might have to get a Gurnsey. As long as your sauce is good, they can be a decent trencher. Just don't over cook that stuff! I doubt anyone needs me to bang on about pasta sauce basics, although I will post some favourite recipes. Good quick pasta sauces are about having some basics on hand. EVOO, passata, a bag of white goon, garlic, chilli, tomato paste, tinned tomatoes, eggs, dried or fresh herbs, parmesan etc. With these basics on hand, you can make a variety of superb pasta sauces in their own right. If you're lucky you might have something extra lurking in the fridge or pantry, to make it sing louder. 

We very often have "pasta sans pasta," which is a wanky way that I just thought up of saying pasta sauce on something that's not pasta. Steamed or roast vegetables are absolutely delicious when served under a generous helping of your favourite sauce. Rice and beans are also an option, as are polenta and coucous. I recently heard a story of a group of Italians and Tongans who made up cane gang up here in Far North Queensland. One of the people we regularly buy produce from in Innisfail told us that they put their heads together and came up with cassava gnochi. That's what I call a fusion. Or maybe a confusion. Either way, I bet it was good. 

Dhal - Lentils conjure up an image of yellowish brown gruel-like one pot dishes concocted by hippies or students too shitfaced to care about flavour or nutrition. It's easy to get the impression that lentil dishes largely play the role of just sitting in the stomach until the skunk kicks in and sparking a mercy dash to the servo for 20 Freddo Frogs and a hot chicken hero. The cheapest of all dried legumes, their reputation isn't wholly unjustified, though it has evolved largely at the hands of people with no fucking idea. I recall working as a sound recordist on low budget film productions that were catered by the "producer's sister who owned a cafe in Newtown." Inedible would be a kind adjective.

So now that I've completely denigrated the poor lentil and destroyed any hope that anyone will give them another chance, I'm going to tell you how good they are. Like lentils themselves dhals come in many and varied forms. The most basic of India's rich diversity of curries can be absolutely delicious as either a side dish or a meal in its own right. A basic selection of dry spices, fresh ginger, garlic, onions, fresh turmeric, almonds and stock are all items that can turn lentils into a delicious curry dish or soup. Cheap, quick, simple, with the potential to become a new source of renewable energy. 

Cantonese Style Noodle Soups - You'd be hard pushed to find anyone who doesn't like soup noodles. What ends up in the soup is limited only by imagination, but one thing that's essential is a good master stock. All stocks broths freeze well, they cost bugger all to make and as a base for a soup, they require little more than heating. Chicken frames can be purchased for under $10 a box from a good butcher. They make great broths, as do all bones and fish trimmings. We love the classic Cantonese five spice broth. I've read many arguments over what the five spices should actually be. Whatever you believe, one of them has to be star anise. My personal belief is that a five spice broth should contain: Star anise, fennel, ginger, cloves (in great moderation) and cassia / cinnamon. 

A good broth should take a few hours to simmer to perfection with great attention paid to skimming. once a broth is on hand, simply heat and combine with whatever your imagination can come up with. My personal favourite is fresh egg noodles. Hokkien noodles, dried egg noodles, rice noodles, soba noodles or even spaghetti will all work in a good five spice broth. Other options for ingredients could include cabbage, bok choy, choy sum, mustard greens, various meats, fish, crustaceans, shellfish, fish balls or if the budget doesn't stretch to balls because it's as tight as the fishes arse, just a plain broth with noodles will fill you up and provide sufficient protein. Other broths can be based on a variety of flavours including miso, Vietnamese style beef broth (Pho) or dashi. 

So there you have seven standards, which not by coincidence is also the number of days in a week. I'm not suggesting that standards should make up your weekly menu. A weekly menu needs a generous helping of fresh vegetables. In saying that, budgets don't always allow for them. You might also get to a point in the financial cycle that prevents their purchase. I'm demonstrating that by keeping a good selection of reasonably inexpensive basics on hand, you can pull a rabbit out of a hat any day of the week. Just be aware that rabbit has limited nutritional value and could result in a $40K fine if it's in your possession in Queensland. 

What's great about this overview of our standards is that not only are they inexpensive, simple and delicious, they don't involve the use of any processed food products. The amount of sugar or salt that's required is essentially up to the individual. In the case of dishes requiring flour or flour based ingretients, you have a choice of the grains or flours that make up the dishes. In other words people can still maintain control of their OCD and eating disorders. I'm stirring intentionally. Don't bite.

I'll be posting a selections of recipes based on these ideas, in due course.